A look at the day’s political happenings, including Harry Reid speculates about the likelihood of Congress taking up gun control again and scandal-plagued San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is due to begin therapy.

A look at the day’s political happenings, including the roll call vote for Justin Amash’s failed NSA surveillance amendment and the Republican congressional idea that one GOP senator called “the dumbest” he ever heard.

What’s with those teenagers sending around photos of their privates? It turns out they’re just a fantasy. A new study asked kids whether they had created and sent sexually explicit images of themselves (rather than the vaguer “do you sext?”) and only 1 percent said “yes.”

For some light holiday reading, we offer this satirical little ditty composed by Larry Beinhart, the wordsmith who wrote the novel that gave birth to the movie “Wag the Dog.” At last, a winning solution to one of our nation’s most compromising and costly political problems.

Rep. Anthony Weiner followed the political playbook closely in dealing with his own sexting scandal: First, deny all wrongdoing. If that doesn’t work, start making vague concessions and/or backroom deals. Next, hold news conference, apologize completely and go to rehab.

Well, this is awkward. Jon Stewart had the unenviable task of responding with humor to the bizarre spectacle that was his friend Rep. Anthony Weiner’s big reveal—both in sexting form and in the congressman’s eventual admission of guilt—on Monday’s “Daily Show.”

Oh what to make of Sen. Joe Lieberman’s dark influence on health care reform? Should it be passed or torpedoed for the greater good? And what about sexting? Hey, there’s more to life than health care. And it’s all here, in today’s list.

Vermont, Ohio and Utah are among the first states trying to back away from laws that treat a teenager with a cell phone as if he or she were a child pornographer. They know there’s a difference between truly dreadful judgment and a felony.